In this third installment of their ongoing “childhood trauma” series, Meaghan and Arthur revisit the 1986 animal attack thriller Link.
If you’ve been tuning in, you already know the premise of this series: each episode, one of the hosts picks a movie they saw way too young, a movie that scared them, stuck with them, or straight-up traumatized them, and then they rewatch it as adults. They’re looking to see if it holds up, if it was ever scary to begin with, and what in the world they were thinking back then.
This week, it’s Arthur’s turn, and he brings a mostly-forgotten British horror flick to the table. The movie? Link, directed by Richard Franklin and starring a very young Elizabeth Shue and a deeply unsettling orangutan in a tuxedo. Buckle up.
A Plot That’s Both Confusing and Bizarre
Arthur kicks things off by reading the official IMDb synopsis of the film, and let’s just say… it doesn’t exactly clear things up. The grammar is rough, the logic is off, and by the end of it, Meaghan and Arthur are left with more questions than answers.
According to the blurb, the story is about a student named Jane who takes a job assisting a professor named Philip at his isolated estate. The only other “people” living there? A chimpanzee and a butler, who turns out to be a very smart orangutan named Link.
In Arthur’s words, Jane is an “idiot student” for taking this job in the first place. She accepts an assistant gig with a clearly shady professor who is conducting unapproved experiments on apes, in a creepy coastal mansion, no less. The apes live in locked rooms. There’s no oversight. What could go wrong?
Oh, right, everything.
The movie eventually devolves into an ape-led horror thriller (or maybe a comedy, they’re not sure). Link, the orangutan, starts getting jealous when Jane pays attention to other apes.
He acts out. He gets violent. He murders. You know, typical butler-turned-psycho primate stuff.
But the hosts are both floored by how disjointed the whole thing is. For one, Link is technically supposed to be a chimpanzee, but he’s played by a fully grown orangutan whose fur is dyed black.
The movie never even tries to explain the species switch. That’s just one of many confusing creative choices. The film can’t seem to decide what it wants to be: horror, thriller, comedy, and so it ends up being none of those things particularly well.
A Cast Too Good for This Movie?
Despite the strange script, the film somehow pulled in some serious acting talent. Elizabeth Shue, yes, that Elizabeth Shue, stars as Jane, right on the heels of her breakout in The Karate Kid and right before Back to the Future and Adventures in Babysitting.
Arthur and Meaghan are both a little stunned to see her in such an oddball film. They also note that Terrence Stamp is in the movie, and it was directed by Richard Franklin, who made Psycho II (which, for the record, they both agree is a solid sequel).
It’s one of those projects where everyone involved seems like they’re doing good work, but the material just doesn’t measure up.
Meaghan jokes that the professor (played by Stamp) is either a “dirty old man” or just deeply socially awkward, and the early scenes between him and Jane are “super inappropriate.”
That whole setup, a college professor hiring a young female student to live with him in his isolated mansion, would never fly today. Arthur agrees. It’s creepy from the jump, and not in a good horror-movie way.
Still, both hosts agree the casting is weirdly impressive, even if the script is a mess.
Was It Ever That Scary?
Arthur, who picked the film for its trauma factor, admits he saw it when he was maybe 11 or 12. He thinks it aired on daytime TV while he was home alone. Watching it now? Not even close to scary. In fact, it’s kind of hilarious.
Meaghan compares the experience to rewatching American Werewolf in Paris for a previous episode, another movie that didn’t age well in the scare department.
They both talk about how time, memory, and age distort fear. What traumatizes you at 10 just doesn’t hit the same at 35. A big part of the fear was just being young and alone. The gore? Minimal. The violence? Almost all implied.
Even the titular ape-killer doesn’t really seem that dangerous. In fact, he’s kind of adorable.
Meaghan brings up the film’s score, composed by Jerry Goldsmith (who won a genre-specific award for it).
The music is good, sure, but completely at odds with the tone of the movie. The score is so upbeat and whimsical that it feels like it belongs in a totally different film.
They both laugh at how mismatched the music is with what’s happening on screen, like a brutal death scene backed by circus music.
The Real Stars: The Apes
Forget the humans. Meaghan and Arthur are 100% in agreement: the real stars of this film are the apes. Specifically, Link, played by Locke, is a very charismatic orangutan.
Dressed in half a tuxedo for most of the film, Locke gives what Arthur calls “the performance of a lifetime.” He’s weirdly expressive, kind of charming, and just not scary enough to be the movie’s main villain. They joke that no matter how many people he kills, you still find yourself rooting for him.
The other apes, Voodoo, a massive female chimp, and Imp, her baby, also make an impression, especially since they were real animals on set.
This was the 1980s, so none of the animals are CGI. There’s real tension around the fact that adult chimps are extremely dangerous and very strong.
Meaghan points out how rare it is to have full-grown apes on set nowadays due to safety and ethical concerns, and both hosts marvel at the sheer audacity of the production.
There’s even a behind-the-scenes tidbit: Elizabeth Shue got bitten by one of the chimps during filming. Not surprisingly, given the number of scenes where she has to be aggressive toward them.
The Ending Makes No Sense (and That’s Fine)
If the start of the movie is confusing, the ending might be even worse. There’s an opening scene, unrelated to the rest of the plot, that shows an unseen ape killing pigeons and a cat on a rooftop. It never ties back into the main story.
The film ends with Jane escaping the house, picking up baby chimp Imp, and driving off into the distance. Along the way, we see a field full of dead sheep. Are the rabid dogs to blame? Did Imp kill them? Did Link survive and follow them?
The movie doesn’t say. Meaghan and Arthur spend a good five minutes spitballing theories. Was that beginning scene supposed to be the end? Is it a full circle moment? Is Imp the real villain now? Who knows. It’s wild.
Childhood Trauma or Just Childhood Confusion?
In the end, both hosts agree that Link is weirdly entertaining, but not for the reasons it probably intended. It’s not a scary film. It’s not even really a good film. But it is memorable, if only because it tries to do too many things at once and doesn’t succeed at any of them.
Arthur’s childhood trauma? Mostly cured. Rewatching the movie has taken a lot of the mystery and fear out of it. For Meaghan, this episode serves as a reminder that context, age, setting, and mood do a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to horror.
They wrap things up by encouraging listeners to reach out if they’ve also seen Link or remember watching something similar as a kid and having it stick with them for no real reason. As always, the episode ends with laughter, banter, and the promise of more chaotic “trauma therapy” episodes to come.